Job classifications also cause dissent at USCIS in Calif.
Friday, 07 December 2007
Reorganization has some refusing to do certain work
ST. ALBANS CITY— While contract workers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) service center here are considering joining the United Electrical Workers (UE), their counterparts in California describe a service center that has descended into chaos.
At the facility in Laguna Nigel, Calif. some workers are refusing to accept tasks that they believe are not their responsibility under their new job classifications.
Joel Faypon, a California worker for Stanley, told the Messenger that in his unit there are 20 clerks and the reclassifications have resulted in lost pay for many of them.
Under the previous contractor, SCOT, the California clerks would begin as Data Entry Operator I but after a probationary period would be promoted to Operator II.
Faypon said his unit – where previously everyone had been classified as Data Entry Operator II -- is now comprised of seven people working at the General Clerk I level, nine at the Data Entry Clerk I level, and four at Data Entry Level II.
“Under SCOT, none of these clerks were classified as General Clerk I,” Faypon wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. In California, General Clerk I employers are paid $10.69. Data Entry Operator II workers make $12.98. The difference, using a 40-hour workweek, is more than $4,500 in annual wages.
At the Vermont service center about 100 General Clerk I employees lost pay when their work was reclassified as Data Entry Operator II. In Vermont General Clerks are paid more than Data Entry Operators.
The pay scales for each service center are determined by the U.S. Department of Labor based on prevailing wages in the region for the same type of work. Under the Service Contract Act, to change wages for a group of employees the company has to change the job classifications.
Eric Wolking, a Stanley vice president, said that as Stanley continues to refine operations at the centers, “workers will be doing work associated with that classification.”
At the California center, the General Clerks are refusing to do data entry work, confining themselves to file set-up. All questions are being referred to the Data Entry Clerk II employees.
One California worker told the Messenger that files are beginning to “pile up” and that he has never seen things so “chaotic and unorganized.”
On Monday, the day Stanley took over operations, workers in at least one of the California units did nothing for the first 40 minutes of their shift, a staffer there told the Messenger.
“We did not start to work because we had to wait for the Stanley managers to give us direction,” the worker said.
In California, Stanley has told workers that they would not be harassed for protesting because of their grievances. Workers began doing so on Nov. 19, criticizing the wage cuts, and what they believed to be wage discrimination in the reassignment of 10 quality control workers to data entry jobs.
According to Messenger sources, all of the reassigned workers are over the age of 50, and five are over the age of 59.
Prior to Stanley’s takeover, workers reported harassment of protestors that included at least one manager demanding to know the names and unit assignments of protestors, according to protest organizer Kristy Tran.
According to the request for proposals (RFP) USCIS put out for the service center operations, Stanley will be rewarded for timely, accurate and efficient file handling. This includes both the creation of files, work done by the data entry clerks, as well as file organization and retrieval.
However, contrary to rumors at the Vermont service center, Stanley is not in any sort of “trial period,” according Shawn Saucier, a CIS spokesperson, although the company can be financially penalized for poor work.
LINK
Friday, 07 December 2007
Reorganization has some refusing to do certain work
ST. ALBANS CITY— While contract workers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) service center here are considering joining the United Electrical Workers (UE), their counterparts in California describe a service center that has descended into chaos.
At the facility in Laguna Nigel, Calif. some workers are refusing to accept tasks that they believe are not their responsibility under their new job classifications.
Joel Faypon, a California worker for Stanley, told the Messenger that in his unit there are 20 clerks and the reclassifications have resulted in lost pay for many of them.
Under the previous contractor, SCOT, the California clerks would begin as Data Entry Operator I but after a probationary period would be promoted to Operator II.
Faypon said his unit – where previously everyone had been classified as Data Entry Operator II -- is now comprised of seven people working at the General Clerk I level, nine at the Data Entry Clerk I level, and four at Data Entry Level II.
“Under SCOT, none of these clerks were classified as General Clerk I,” Faypon wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. In California, General Clerk I employers are paid $10.69. Data Entry Operator II workers make $12.98. The difference, using a 40-hour workweek, is more than $4,500 in annual wages.
At the Vermont service center about 100 General Clerk I employees lost pay when their work was reclassified as Data Entry Operator II. In Vermont General Clerks are paid more than Data Entry Operators.
The pay scales for each service center are determined by the U.S. Department of Labor based on prevailing wages in the region for the same type of work. Under the Service Contract Act, to change wages for a group of employees the company has to change the job classifications.
Eric Wolking, a Stanley vice president, said that as Stanley continues to refine operations at the centers, “workers will be doing work associated with that classification.”
At the California center, the General Clerks are refusing to do data entry work, confining themselves to file set-up. All questions are being referred to the Data Entry Clerk II employees.
One California worker told the Messenger that files are beginning to “pile up” and that he has never seen things so “chaotic and unorganized.”
On Monday, the day Stanley took over operations, workers in at least one of the California units did nothing for the first 40 minutes of their shift, a staffer there told the Messenger.
“We did not start to work because we had to wait for the Stanley managers to give us direction,” the worker said.
In California, Stanley has told workers that they would not be harassed for protesting because of their grievances. Workers began doing so on Nov. 19, criticizing the wage cuts, and what they believed to be wage discrimination in the reassignment of 10 quality control workers to data entry jobs.
According to Messenger sources, all of the reassigned workers are over the age of 50, and five are over the age of 59.
Prior to Stanley’s takeover, workers reported harassment of protestors that included at least one manager demanding to know the names and unit assignments of protestors, according to protest organizer Kristy Tran.
According to the request for proposals (RFP) USCIS put out for the service center operations, Stanley will be rewarded for timely, accurate and efficient file handling. This includes both the creation of files, work done by the data entry clerks, as well as file organization and retrieval.
However, contrary to rumors at the Vermont service center, Stanley is not in any sort of “trial period,” according Shawn Saucier, a CIS spokesperson, although the company can be financially penalized for poor work.
LINK
